Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

New Hampshire's Republican Presidential Primary candidate Albert Howard has delivered a letter to Secretary of State Bill Gardner, demanding that "all ballots that have been returning from the towns and cities, including, but not necessarily limited to, the unused/uncast ballots and the 'spoiled' ballots," be counted as part of the ongoing Election Contest in the Granite State. Howard filed for the contest, where ballots are being counted again today in Concord, following concerns about reported results from the Diebold optical-scan machines used during the state's January 8th Primary.

The BRAD BLOG has also learned that problems with Diebold machines were reported in 21 different towns during the primary, according to Howard, who says he has finally received some answers to public records requests filed with the state weeks ago, asking for details of problems with the machines that occurred on Election Day.

We just spoke with Howard, who explained that counting conditions in Concord continue to be "a mess," prompting his latest demands, which echoed earlier ones that remain unmet by SoS Gardner.

The Republican Howard also told us that he'd been contacted recently by the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, who called him personally to discuss concerns about what was going on in the wake of questions surrounding the New Hampshire Primary Election results...

Describing the reasoning behind his latest request to count the unvoted ballots along with the voted ballots, Howard told The BRAD BLOG this afternoon that his observers "are noticing that these uncast ballots are inside the ballot boxes with the ballots that are being counted on the table."

"The Democratic ballots are mixed in with the Republican ballots. We're having to separate them. It's a real mess," he said, adding that counters are being forced to sit and wait for hours as they continue to wait for ballots to be delivered from towns where the election was held almost four full weeks ago.

"The observers are sitting there sometimes for two hours waiting to count, and I'm having to pay these people," Howard, who raised nearly $60,000 to pay for the hand count, told us. "We've got so many counters, they're blowing through [the ballots] at super speed. The people who are picking up the ballots are going out, and the counters are having to wait, and it's just not right."

Howard had originally requested that unvoted and spoiled ballots be made available for counting, in order to allow proper reconciliation during the hand count, when he first filed his Contest (complete letter, listing all of Albert's original demands posted at the end of our 1/15/08 article). Similarly, Democratic contestant Dennis Kucinich's campaign, which also requested a hand count, had demanded that unvoted ballots be included in that count, as well. Gardner refused to comply with the demand, citing state law which, he said, requires only the counting of ballots actually "cast" in the election.

Howard says the law allows for "all ballots" to be counted.

In his short, hand-delivered letter, posted in full at the end of this article, Howard also demands that Gardner "provide the number of ballots that were printed and the number of ballots that were delivered to each town and city." Presumably, again, so that there can be appropriate reconciliation for the ballots being counted, and to ensure that blank, unvoted ballots have not been used to alter results of the ballots currently being hand counted.

Over the last several weeks, The BRAD BLOG has reported on a number of outrageous "chain of custody" concerns revealed during the hand count of ballots in New Hampshire, where 80% of the state's votes had been tabulated --- without human verification or double-check of any of the paper ballots used --- by the same Diebold optical-scan machines shown to be easily hackable in HBO's 2006 documentary, Hacking Democracy.

Concerns over lax chain of custody have emerged since counting began in the state capitol. Election Integrity experts on location in New Hampshire have detailed such concerns, which include ballots delivered to the counting room in Concord in alarming condition, in unsealed and opened boxes (see photo essay here); "security seals" which are shown to be as easily removed as Post-It notes (see video here); and ballots left out overnight, instead of stored in the state's ballot vault during the hand count of Democratic ballots.

Gardner has previously been unable to account for the reason that ballots were left unattended outside of the vault, and has admitted that he has no idea what's become of the sensitive Diebold memory cards used to program and store vote counts on the optical-scanners. That, despite federal law requiring such election-related media be securely retained for 22 months following an election.

The Democratic hand count was suspended last week, after counting in just two of New Hampshire's counties found mistallies for many candidates across many voting wards. Variances from the initial Diebold count were discovered during the hand count to be as high as 4% to 10% in several wards --- while the general error rate was found to be approximately 1% across all areas counted during the Kucinich's Democratic hand count.

Similar miscounts have been revealed so far during the Republican hand count, including notable mistallies in the town of Stratham. "We're noticing discrepancies and irregularities where all of a sudden you've got clusters of Romneys and McCains where the numbers are very high. Incidents where Obama was crossed out twice, etc.," says Howard. "We're trying to figure out what's going on here."

Howard, one of several little-known Republican candidates on the primary ballot, filed for the hand count, he claims, after reports on C-SPAN on Election Night showed him receiving more than 100 votes, only to find he was awarded just 44 votes after the official state-reported, largely machine-tabulated results were released.

The Michigan Republican has also been contacted by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, who, Howard says, was concerned about reports he'd read at The BRAD BLOG in regard to the hand counts.

"Conyers called me, said he's very interested in this, and said that he's going to get back to me. He's very aware of what's going on," Howard explained.

Howard went on to say that every time a question comes up about procedures for the hand count, Secretary of State "Gardner becomes very nervous and asks if I want to stop the recount."

"I keep telling him, 'No, I don't want to stop the recount, I want you to do the count I paid for!'" says Howard.

Last week, as The BRAD BLOG reported, Asst. Sec. of State David Scanlan informed Howard that the count would be recessed for two days this week. Howard objected, and the count continued as scheduled.

"They never explained why they wanted to have a recess on this," Howard told us today.

The letter, delivered today by Republican Albert Howard to NH Secretary of State William Gardner, again reiterating his demand that all unvoted ballots to be included in the hand count, follows in full below…

February 1, 2008

HAND DELIVERED
Mr. William Gardner
Secretary of State
State of New Hampshire
Dept. of State
107 N. Main St. Rm 204
Concord, NH 03301

Re: MISSING BALLOTS

Dear Mr. Gardner:

Under the authority of New Hampshire’s Election Law or, if necessary, New Hampshire’s Right to Know Law, I respectfully request the recount immediately begin to include a count of the all ballots that have been returned from the towns and cities, including, but not necessarily limited to, the unused/uncast ballots and the “spoiled” ballots.

In addition, please provide the number of ballots that were printed and the number of ballots that were delivered to each town and city.

Time is of the essence, your immediate attention to this matter is essential.

"Gardner has previously been unable to account for the reason that ballots were left unattended outside of the vault, and has admitted that he has no idea what's become of the sensitive Diebold memory cards used to program and store vote counts on the optical-scanners. That, despite federal law requiring such election-related media be securely retained for 22 months following an election."

So why isn't the DOJ pursuing a case against him?
What is the U.S. Attorney's office in New Hampshire doing about this violation of Federal law?

I think one of the things that people fail to realize here is that Albert Howard is a candidate for President of the United States.

He's absolutely right to make demands.

The media does not cover it because they are fascists. The fascist media would rather you don't even know there is a problem in New Hampshire. Their agenda was to get their PNAC/CFR/AIPAC candidates into the public desirability spotlight. I believe the fascist media has succeeded in that goal. The fascist media has succeeded in making all of us on the web, youtube, the blogs irrelevant.

I got four days to figure out who to vote for out here in California, and I still don't know who to choose. Further I have to hope that our ballots are not tabulated on an electronic device that can't have public oversight. And that any paper ballots are maintained with integrity by a 100% chain of custody.

I know this isn't a political issue. e.g. voting integrity.

So I will just keep my mouth shut about any of the surviving candidates. Except to say that the Constitution, Corruption, lack of accountability, The Israel Influence, AIPAC, PNAC, CFR, spying and lying, and the rotten people from the nasty central American past haunt my decision. I don't see our national security getting stronger without the removal of these rotten convicted felons in high offices. How people are even allowed a security clearance while wearing so many hats is impossible for me to conceive.

Noam Chomsky was wise early on. I am gonna paraphrase and switch around slightly what he said somewhere. (go search his site)The fascist media are the civilized American replacement for death squads of Central America. They can't just go out and kill people at night(well I guess they can now with the Patriot Act) so instead they pacify us with garbage crap on TV.

I hope the transition to HDTV will be timed to kill the fascist media off from the public long enough that the public can get a grip on what's up, but my feeling is that the opposite will happen, our votes will be a trainwreck and no news will be available at all. (including fascist news)
I dunno, maybe I haven't thought about it enough.

But New Hampshire should take very seriously Albert's demands for a recount.

Just a few facts for you to consider. They may be relevant or they may not.

Mr Gardner has been Secretary of State in NH since 1976. He has been returned to office by Republicans and Democrats who both think he has a world of integrity.

In 1992, Bill Clinton needed a victory in the NH primary to make his presidential campaign viable. He got his crucial victory and we know the rest of the story. He became the self described "Comeback Kid".

In 2004,John Kerry pulled an upset victory in NH over Howard Dean and went on to be the Democratic nominee.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton needed a crucial win in NH to prevent her campaign from taking a serious downturn. Prior to the primary,her husband Bill assumed a significant role in her campaign. Despite the polls,she was declared the winner in NH. Just what the doctor ordered?
Question. Could this in some way be connected to what happened in 1992? Maybe favors called in? I don't know.

We have seen what the response and conduct of Mr Gardner is with regards to the current recount. To my mind just from what I have observed,this man would seem to be quite upset that there is a recount at all and has been stonewalling in hopes that it will go away and not be a major embarrassment or worse.

Thanks to Albert Howard,he may be able to make just the Democratic half go away.

Since the MSM is doing no reporting on this story,New Hampshire is not yet getting the "big black eye" that it so richly deserves.

Just to fill out one of your points, from the first graf above, though he's officially a Democrat, Gardner is a 16 term Sec. of State, approved time and again by the Republican majority legislature who ruled up there for most of those 16 years until recently.

In addition to the less-than-impressive job he seems to have done, and seems to be doing in regard to the NH Election/Hand Count, he also seems to have out and out lied to the media recently, in regard to Kucinich's position on the hand count. Details here in case you missed it previously.

I was an observer yesterday (January 31, 2008) and Albert Howard is exactly right about the "mess." It really is unacceptable.

The Asst. Secretary of State would bring the boxes to the end of the tables and pull the ballots out to hand them to the counters. These ballots were in a disarray; Democrat and Republican, absentee, handicapped mixed, going every which way but loose.

One critical thing that made me take notice was embedded unused ballots were among this mess in every box that we observed. One would think that the "Chain of Custody" would have been to inform town/city clerks that and unused ballots be placed in an envelope and sealed shut and clearly written on the envelope "unused ballots" and the amount in the envelope. In all reality, these unused ballots should have been mailed (registered) separately and not added to the mix.

Then the Asst. SoS brought a Rubbermaid box with flip top lid that hinged on the plastic container itself from the town of Hopkinton, NH. In the ballots placed on the table to be counted when the counters tried to organize these ballots there were also embed (7) unused ballots among this batch.

The counters were very quick in separating and organizing every ballot--the biggest problem was that by 3 pm we were getting down to the last box of ballots. We were told by Albert Howard that we would be observing from 9 - 5 with an hour lunch break.

Butch and Hoppy were supposed to bring more ballots but we never saw them again. I personally think the officials are halting this process as much as they can with hopes Albert Howard will get disgusted and call it off.

658:33 Delivery of Ballots to Additional Polling Place. Before the polls are opened at the central polling place on the day of an election, {{{the town clerk shall seal up the 2 duplicate copies of the checklist for each additional polling place lodged with him by the supervisors with a number of blank ballots equal to the number of voters on such checklist and 50 additional ballots.}}} If the moderator has authorized the counting of votes and thereby authorized the processing of absentee ballots at the additional polling place, the absentee ballots of those persons qualified to vote in that additional polling place shall be sealed up along with a list of those persons qualified to vote at that additional polling place to whom absentee ballots have been sent. This package shall be prepared and sealed in the presence of the moderator and selectmen and be delivered immediately to the assistant moderator of the additional polling place by 2 election officers designated by the moderator.

Well, they have an idea how many blank ballots were supposed to be provided. Question is, are all of those blank ballots accounted for after the election? How many were used by last minute registration voters?

There was a discussion about the integrity (or lack of same) of our elections on today's Science Friday on Talk of the Nation, an NPR radio program. Avi Rubin spoke very well about the problems, IMHO. The show later had several pollsters on who incorrectly claimed that the NH recount was continuing and acted as if there was no reason to expect anything unusual was going on with the state's SoS. You can hear the program here:

The pollster segment of the show is actually pretty disappointing. The interviewee "experts" seem to be poorly informed about the kind of developments Avi Rubin spoke of, and seem to know little except the methodology of their own polling techniques.

Badger, there are probably a couple of sources of the info on unused ballots, and the original data/backup paperwork for the final unused ballot number MAY be in the town clerk/ROV possession and a copy (I think) optionally going to the SOS. This is based on reading the manuals and statutes; real life may vary.

( NH election administration handbook )The moderator or his or her designee shall enter the following information on the sealer in the appropriate place: the number of ballots cast, canceled and uncast, and endorse the sealer. RSA 659:95.

From the manual again:

Moderators and clerks are strongly urged not to seal the tally sheets into the ballot box, as these may be necessary to resolve tabulation questions following election night. Since the ballot box cannot be accessed without a recount or court order, sealing your election night tally sheets and working papers in the box of ballots prevents a review of the count of votes.

This ballot reconciliation slideshow from the NH Deputy AG is easy to follow and interesting, and observes, approximately: "Do your ballot reconciliation on election night. It's much easier than doing a recount."

NH law allows extra ballots to be photocopied if precincts run out, and one town --- Stratham, I believe, was reported in an online news story as having to photocopy 87. How in a recount you reconcile photocopied ballots, tell the difference between unused ballots and blank ballots (which may really be blank, or may have been accepted as blank though the ink the machine couldn't be read on them), without that election night paper work is unclear to me. Hope its clearer to the recounters how to reconcile their counts.

Canada, e.g. DOES require each type of ballot to be sealed separately in an envelope, and the whole integrated set of info that is the record of the election to be sealed in a container.

I found one description of Canadian election night processes at this link.
Didn't have to look far to find a better procedure than the reported disarray.

It comes to mind that SoS Gardner is doing the same thing to Albert Howard as he did to Kucinich.

Since the candidate requesting the recount must pay the full cost if they are 3% or more below the winner,if Mr Gardner wishes to end a recount,all he would have to do is drag out as much as possible the process so that he can swell the state coffers with the candidate's money and,if too much money is spent,no more recount,no more scrutiny,and the status quo returns.

I think Kucinich recognized this and didn't want to pour good money after bad.

So far,Albert Howard is persevering and,hopefully,he can force at least his half of the recount to a successful and revealing conclusion.

How does someone so incompetent in their job get restated for 16 terms? I think this has more to do with lazy bureaucrats than anything else. Unfortunately, in this case, this guy is the NH gatekeeper for accountable elections- and the retention of a democracy in that state. If indeed any fraud is found- interesting observations, Steve B- I'm pretty sure this isn't the guy who had anything to do with it- other than his- and his staff's- incompetence that allowed for it to happen. More fodder for having a consistent national system with several levels of safeguards in place- especially since paper ballots are the only solution and will pass through more hands than with DRE's.

After two rrounds of elections in 2000 and 2004 where votes were so obviously stolen it is deeply disturbing that it is happening again at the beginning of the primaries. As with the faked terror things are moving along so fast that unless there is a huge outcry no verification or recount will be done, let alone completed. How in God's name can the people running these things be labelled as anything less than criminally incompetent? The fix is in, Bush kissed Billary to continue the dynastic fraud and it will be so regardless of what the American people want or vote for.

That the same people in charge of producing the result are in charge of checking it is a problem with any recount in which one possibility is malfeasance.

660:5 Conduct of Recount. If directed by the secretary of state, the state police shall collect all ballots requested from the town or city clerks having custody of them and shall deliver them to the public facility designated by the secretary of state. At the time and place so appointed, the ballots cast for such office shall be counted by the secretary of state and such assistants as the secretary of state may require.

What is needed when election results are questioned (a recount is requested) is an aggressive "election verification", rather than a vote counting demonstration. One would think that with polls varying so greatly from election results, the SOS, too, would want to make sure everything was in order.To verify, one must be able to reconcile and see the evidence and make sure it matches up.

is a Class B Felony in Vermont to falsify this document (per the statutes again). Here's a snippet:

659:73 General Content of Return. The election return forms shall include, but not be limited to, the name of each person voted for and the number of votes cast, the number of affirmative and negative votes cast on any question submitted to voters, information relating to the number of voters and to the number and types of ballots cast at the election.

If paperwork was not ever completed correctly, there's a very good chance that the election results (given the chain of custody problems) would be unverifiable.

A scenario may be highly likely: that the SOS has on his hands an unverifiable election, improperly completed paperwork that is missing or sent late, perhaps after the ballots have left the town.

Now what do you do?

Computers provide a patina of fast, efficient results, but the real bedrock of the result is in its ability to be verified.

#13...How does one so incompetent as Gardner keep getting reelected? I think because N.H. is the 2nd primary state and can make or break a cadidate...the fix has been in for a very long time. I live in Maine..believe me, the so called moderates Susan and Olympia are not indicative of Maine people. They are both fascist.

Why does this article say that Howard "demands" that all the ballots be counted, when his letter obviously and pulingly "respectfully request"(s) that they be counted? That kind of sensationalist nonsense irritates the f*** out of me and, frankly, it's way past time for anybody to be calling this crook "Dear Mr. Gardner."

In any event, it should be obvious to anybody with a pulse that the entire election process in this country is completely rigged. ANY election official that would certify these touch-screen theft devices should be hanged and left for the crows to peck.

Diebold (now called Premier Election Solutions --- you couldn't make this up) makes ATMs that are used by banks all over this country. They spit out a paper receipt that tells you what just happened, and they almost never make a mistake. How can anybody be stupid enough to think that it's just some kind of an unfortunate manufacturing error that causes these machines to continually, and wildly, miscount votes, as well as leave absolutely no paper trail that could be used in an audit? The design is obviously deliberate. Every single person in that company involved in the design of these machines should be publicly drawn and quartered, and then thrown face-up into a hog pen. Enough is way more than enough.

I wish more of us would notice that, while the machines do have their problems, the real problems are with the election officials who don't know how or refuse to do their jobs according to the law. Those unsealed or mis-sealed ballot boxes are horrifying and completely unacceptable. Election officials who take an oath to enforce election law and don't should be severely punished. In reality, if the election officials do their job properly, the machine problems become much less of an issue as discrepencies will be obvious and potentially correctable. The officials, not the machines, are the only key to valid elections.

Jack Nauti, I think there's much to be said for the the "machines don't seal elections, people do" point of view. That is exactly why some people think audits of election results should be done regularly, regardless of the alleged closeness of the outcome. If there is no one ever counting the paper ballots, they are a quaint feature, a stage prop,meant to reassure the electorate but not actually used for anything.

Computerized voting without regular complete audits/reconciliations is like owning a toaster with a history of defects and never buying a battery for your smoke alarm.

Brad, I would like you (or someone you trust and respect) to discuss whether this NH mess is from vote fixing, willful incompetence (being incompetent to cover-up something else), or simple incompetence.

Voting is scared. The way the NH SoS has handled it is akin to throwing the Bible or the Koran in the mud and trampling upon it.

Computer chips can be a pain at times but NEVER to the point that a manufacturer should need to have an open invitation to service voting machines during an election!!!

REALLY!!!!

I have been following the NH election/recount since the get go and don’t for a minute think it is anything less than an outright fraud. There is just too much stuff going against the grain to be on the up and up. ie:
1. NH polls gave Obama a healthy lead
2. Exit polls confirmed that healthy lead.
3. The flip flopping of like numbers/percents between candidates
4. The complete lack of competence of SoS Gardner regarding the ‘Chain of Custody”
5. The complete lack of competence of responsibility regarding elections law in NH
6. The anal retentive manor under which the recount has been administered

There has been way to much smoke and mirrors going on to NOT point to a fraudulent election.

What the effect of the NH election will have on Tuesday Feb 5 could be enough to through the 2008 elections to the dogs.

I like your list but you missed one of the biggest reasons that the NH election was brought into question- the fact that underdog Hillary won where machines counted the votes while Obama won where they were hand counted.

Regarding the violation of retention requirements: New Hampshire officials claim they are complying with federal retention requirements because, they claim, the New Hampshire Attorney General's office communicated with the US Dept. of Justice and got permission to keep a disk containing the program used instead of the cards.

But it really is horrifying. VoterAction's Jon Bonifaz grilled Asst. A.G. Bud Fitch at length, and he stuck to this ridiculous song and dance that they have permission to ditch the memory cards. I asked him (and others, including Anthony Stevens and Bill Gardner) exactly WHAT "program" they get from LHS in lieu of the memory cards. None of them seemed to know.

I asked whether it was the GEMS mdb files, the memory card dumps, or the Accuvote 1.94w program on the optical scan chip. None of them seemed to know.

I then asked Bud Fitch whether the program (which is provided BEFORE the election) even contains the votes. Of course, it does NOT. It's just an empty vessel that LHS Associates CLAIMS is the actual program, no one seems to know even what component of the voting system this program applies to, and this empty container program, without votes, is considered "evidence."

What is very bizarre is that if you preload the memory card with votes without changing the program, I guess they'd consider it just swell. After all, they only get the program, before votes.

Whatever program it is.

To say this meets federal retention requirements is like saying a blank reconciliation form can be substituted for the filled in forms.

I really DO love the transparency of the open, public hand counting in New Hampshire. It's the administration before and after the hand counting, and the near-total abdication of management over the computerized Diebold machines, that made us all feel like we were in the twilight zone.

Thanks Bev; it would seem to me that ", the New Hampshire Attorney General's office communicated with the US Dept. of Justice and got permission to keep a disk containing the program used instead of the cards." would be a public record,e.g. a phone conversation doesn't constitute official communications.
Are you,Bonifaz, or a NH citizen going to do a FOIA of both the NH SOS and the DOJ regarding such 'permission'?

Bruce, unfortunately my response to getting the DOJ to investigate is "be careful what you wish for." The DOJ and its purge of US Attorneys who didn't prosecute the type of cases the White House wanted them to, or prosecuted them with the incorrect level of fervor.

The DOJ has dragged its heels at fulfilling FOIA requests, and now there is news that the FOIA request handling for the government may be shifted into this politicized, secretive department.

A snippet from a cached page of TPM Cafe written by Kathy Sullivan (Identified as chair of NH Dem party) from Aug 11, 2005 says: "We also recently learned that Todd Hinnen, the US Department of Justice attorney who successfully obtained guilty pleas[e] and jail sentences for McGee and Raymond, and who has been prosecuting Tobin, is being transferred off the case and placed in a cyber-terrorism unit."

So my question is, who would be put on any DOJ investigation/case and what is their track record for professional, unbiased investigation?

Creid, the first thing is to do is issue the FOIA's(public records requests) and see if the NH election officials are telling the truth about the "permission to keep a disk containing the program used instead of the cards."
Nothing should be considered until the facts are known.
And if you don't get a response in the allotted time, find an attorney familiar with FOIA requests, perhaps someone from the Brennan Law Center.

Critics (of objections being raised to the chain of custody on the memory cards) are saying that the cards are still in the machines with something they call security seals on them. In NH, since each town funds its own machines, they probably house them, too.

Has anyone asked someone in the towns, rather than the SOS, where their memory cards are?

The log from LHS on post election servicing might also be of interest.

That would not require an FOIA. Ask them also what instructions they had about retention from the SOS.

Yes, but first it needs to be determined if the DOJ actually did tell Gardner's office what Gardner's office is saying; they are ESPECIALLY important if NH does not do 'central tabulation' and if NH does NOT do 'central tabulation' the idea that some CD with a program on it is sufficient to meet Federal retention requirements is absolutely ludicrous.

Has the SOS been asked if he has ASKED Diebold to ascertain the whereabouts of the cards? Hopefully he will not ask Diebold to collect them for him if they are actually still in the machines. It would seem to State of NH has the responsibility to find the cards, collect them in a responsible secure manner and have them independently analyzed.

Relief Requested: That the Ballot Law Commission and the Secretary of State’s office disclaim any opinion on the accuracy of the Presidential primary election AND the statewide Republican recount because checks and balances to maintain the integrity of the ballots and the total counts were either not followed, or not in place.